Week 5: So, I saw the Backrooms...

So, I saw the backrooms! A very disturbing experience, and well made film. As someone who actively plays the games and watched the Kane Pixels short films, this horror topic has always been fascinating to me. For those of you unfamiliar with this fandom, let me explain it to you. 

The Backrooms is a concept birthed from 4chan, and a great example of showing how Web 2.0 can lead to some truly creative and horrifying things. On May 14th, 2019, a user posted the following image and short story:

That’s it! That’s all that was needed to start an internet sensation that blew up enough for multiple games, short films, and now a full length feature film produced by A24 studios. A simple picture of what looks like a 90’s style office building, with yellowing carpet, ugly wallpaper, and bright fluorescent lights. I’m so grateful I never had to work in a place like this, but apparently lots of people resonated with this image. 

The Backrooms is a liminal space, which as defined by PsychMechanics.com, is “a space between spaces. A liminal space is a boundary between two points in time, space, or both. It’s the middle ground between two grounds, the mid-structure between two structures.” Essentially a transitional space that evokes a feeling of eeriness or disorientation. Imagine an empty mall parking lot at midnight. Or maybe the empty waiting room of a Doctors office when you were a kid, waiting for shots you knew were coming.

The Backrooms liminal space is a realm beyond our own, in which we can accidentally enter by “no-clipping.” This is a video game term for when object boundaries fail and overlap. Within this fandom, people can no-clip into this space and become trapped. As this fandom gained popularity across the internet, the lore and structure of it evolved. Rather than just being a vast expanse of 90’s offices, it now consists of levels. Different online communities started adding things to it- now there’s a party room, a pool level, and now there’s lore and fictional companies researching this liminal space for unknown motives. 

What really solidified this fandom was when a young indie filmmaker, named Kane Parsons, made some short films showing what it would be like to “no-clip” into the backrooms. If you’re interested, check them out here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVAh-MgDVqvDUEq6qDXqORBioE4Yhol_z&si=YqSVXagh5txuwk1g

Now, Kane Parsons did not create this idea, but he built upon it and made something tangible. He took the initial picture and created it in a 3D environment, and then animated it into a story. This is honestly a great case study on how the internet can take a concept and expand it, and it relates a lot to our own weekly reading. Kane did not create the backrooms, yet he is credited for his work expanding it. The original author is anonymous (to my knowledge), and the overall idea has been influenced by so many communities, it’s hard to give credit to where it’s due. 

What’s incredible is how this concept gained enough popularity for studio A24 to work with Kane to develop a full feature film on the Backrooms. It’s amazing to see the internet birth a niche idea and have it spread across the world in such a way. 

I won’t spoil the movie for you, but if you are a horror fan or just interested in seeing something the internet created, I recommend giving it a watch.